


leave me defenseless

by fairest



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Canon Compliant, Courting Rituals, Dom!Byleth, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Piercings, Piercings as Courting Gifts, Porn with Feelings, Post-Time Skip, Pre-Time Skip, Romance, Yeah you read that right, alpha!claude, but like slight porn, everyone but the main two characters are very very minor, is that a new tag, omega!Byleth, probably the most lowkey ABO fic ever, sub!Claude
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:26:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25885798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairest/pseuds/fairest
Summary: On the rare occasion they get close enough for him to scent her, the wave ofnothingnessthat he gets every time acts as both relief and a reminder for him to stay on his path.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth & Claude von Riegan, My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 67





	leave me defenseless

**Author's Note:**

> me, before i started writing: okay don't make it too obvious you have a thing for piercings and sub!Claude  
> me, four days and 8k words later: what

Greed comes naturally to Claude. 

He’s self aware enough about him to know that he is, more than almost anything else, greedy. He’s greed for power; he’s even greedy for an extra five minutes of sleep in the morning. 

He is no stranger to wanting, and he wants Byleth from the moment she darts in front of Edelgard with a face that says she is willing to accept death to save her. The sheer _want_ settles deep into the pit of his stomach and claws at it with razor sharp claws. He wants everything about her power to be his own, covets the idea of having that kind of strength to be his own. Imagines how easily he could complete his goals if she was by his side.

She looks at him too sharply once she’s finished slaughtering the mercenaries, like she sees the greed woven deep into his bones, but it doesn’t scare her off. She faces all of their greed -- Claude knows he’s not alone in his desire for her; he can see the same reflected back at him from Dimitri and Edelgard -- with a steel laced spine and the _want_ grows even more knife-edged against the wall of his stomach.

Watching her hunt down enemies is something that he never tires of, and the want becomes more and more vicious as he sees first hand everything she is capable of. Teach -- miraculously, she had chosen his Deer to take on as her own -- is everything he could have dreamed of and yet she’s still a surprise to him every day. He watches her spar against Felix and Catherine and Jeralt, weapons slamming against each other hard enough to jar his teeth all while Hilda weaves the flowers Teach just gave her into her hair next to him. 

Even Claude gets his own share of flowers, sunflowers large enough that he can only barely make out Teach’s solemn eyes behind the bright yellow petals and blue flowers he doesn’t know the name of. He doesn’t know much about growing plants but he manages to keep them alive for a decent time, at least.

He knows what it is, of course, considering Teach isn’t exactly the most expressive person he’s ever met in his life. She doesn’t have Claude’s silver tongue, but she has figured out other ways to show her appreciation for her students beyond just pretty words. 

Greed comes naturally to Claude. 

It isn’t strictly a surprise when he finds his gaze lingering on the curve of her hip as she demonstrates a particularly difficult grappling move to Raphael or the sheen of sweat on her shoulders and chest on one of the hottest days of the year, pale skin so temptingly whole, but it doesn’t change anything even as the want gnaws steadily away on his organs. 

On the rare occasion they get close enough for him to scent her, the wave of _nothingness_ that he gets every time acts as both relief and a reminder for him to stay on his path. 

The Ashen Demon is a beta and that is the best outcome for everyone. 

* * *

Almyra is very different from Fodlan in...pretty much every way, but arguably the biggest difference is with dynamics and how they proceed with courting. 

Claude has been in Fodlan long enough, and done more research before he had even come here, to know that Fodlanese royalty and nobility is rigid about who is acceptable to marry and who is not. Alpha must marry omega for the marriage to be recognized and betas are set to….watch from the sidelines, is his best guess. They also don’t go out of their way to announce when someone is available or claimed and rely more on word of mouth and discreet gifts that are kept private for the receiver only.

Almyran marriages, on the other hand, don’t pay much attention to marries who, they just care how beneficial it is. His own parents are an alpha-beta marriage on top of his mother being Fodlanese and Claude was only ever discriminated against due to his half-breed status and not his parent’s dynamics. To court someone in Almyra is to announce it to the world with beautiful jewelry pierced through skin and it’s something he wants badly enough to make him ache. Claude remembers curling up next to his mother and just staring at the ornate golden bar that threaded through the cartilage of her ear that had been his father’s first courting gift to her. 

She had never worn much else, he knows, but that glimmering gold was a constant on her.

But he knows that if he is to succeed in his ultimate plan, he will need a marriage that will appeal to the more conservative Fodlan nobles to bring them on with his plan, and that means he will need an omega and he will not be able to court using bars and chains and studs the way he used to expect. 

So even as his mouth goes dry as he watches Teach bear down on some poor hapless bandits with all the wrath of a raging goddess, he tries to put it out of his mind. Being friends with the Ashen Demon, she who wields the Sword of the Creator, will be incredibly beneficial in its own way, and he feels comfortable enough to know that they are friends. 

While alpha and omega scents can vary based on the person, beta scents are uniform in that they don’t really smell like anything. Something like fresh air that doesn’t have any other scents blended in. Teach’s particular scent comes to be something of a comfort as time passes on. Teach doesn’t have any of the swaggering bravado so typical of other alphas or the more meek temperament of omegas. she’s no-nonsense and blunt, and the fact she doesn’t try to hide from him is reassuring. 

That doesn’t stop him from dreaming late at night when he is all alone in his dorm and out of everyone’s prying eyes. 

Teach, scent heady and syrup-thick on his tongue, spread out on his bed and tangled in his sheets. Silver taunts him from where it’s been pierced through her navel, ears, lower lip; her breasts are bruised from kisses and her nipples are flushed dark, which makes their teal blue barbell piercings stand out even more. The image lingers on the back of his eyelids even after he awakens with a gasp and fucks his fist to completion. 

* * *

Teach, no Byleth, looks exactly the same as she did five years ago, and the hollow pit in his stomach that never truly went away after her disappearance feels aching. 

The smile he gives her feels simultaneously too raw and too insincere, and she pauses on the edges of the shadows of the ruined monastery for a moment, unsure. “You overslept, Teach,” he says and watches as some of the tension in the lines of her shoulders dissolves. 

“I’m so sorry,” is all she says, and it’s somehow enough and not enough all at the same time. “I never meant to leave.” Her stoic expression cracks, more open than he can ever recall seeing it, and he doesn’t doubt that she means it. He’d never really doubted it anyways, she was too devoted to their class to just up and leave and he’d always known she would come back to them eventually. 

If things were different, this would probably be the moment that they hugged, but things aren’t different and all he does is clap a hand onto her shoulder. “C’mon, my friend,” he tells her. “Let’s see if the others are going to show up.”

* * *

Byleth being back helps turn the tide of the war in their favor and with it, his responsibilities grow even more. Her own do, as well, with being the acting archbishop in Rhea’s absence, on top of being his tactics advisor, but she never complains. 

The _want_ that he remembers from when they first met has returned, but it isn’t in the sharp, selfish way that it had been when he was seventeen and didn’t know better, when his want was purely focused on how she could benefit him. Now it is all consuming, where every small smile he manages to coax out is a victory in its own right and that he has to seek her out if it has been too long since he’s spoken to her. The want settles deep into his bones and lingers as if Almyran sunlight itself flooded through his veins.

It takes time to clear out the rubble of the monastery and make sure it’s still structurally sound for living in and his former professor decides to pitch a tent out by the mercenaries who used to follow her into battle and were some of the first ones to return rather than in the inner sanctum where he and almost everyone else set up.

He knows just what she’s doing by setting up with a bunch of the commoners and battalions. She’d confessed to him late one night that she didn’t like the idea of being put on a pedestal and kept apart from people like Rhea was. Before she wielded an incredibly powerful relic and was an acting archbishop, she was just a mercenary and some part of her missed that. They really had put too much pressure on her, himself included, and a part of him would feel bad if it wasn’t for the fact that he needed her too much to consider stopping. 

As time passes on, more and more people begin to return back to the monastery. Byleth being out among the masses has warranted people being more comfortable around her and he watches fondly as she frequently gets stopped while she is out doing the rounds, though she never gets any better at actually speaking to people. The whole thing gives Seteth a conniption at the security risk, but it isn’t like anyone could take out Teach if she didn’t want them to, so there isn’t much else he can do about it other than complain at every opportunity. 

There is another meeting today to discuss one of the more minor lords near Fort Merceus and Claude goes down to the mercenary tents to grab Byleth so they can walk together. He does his best to be polite to those he passes, but they aren’t as comfortable with him as they are with Byleth. She stands out like a sore thumb amongst the drab blues and blacks of the mercenaries she is with, and as he approaches her, she’s talking to someone he doesn’t recognize. The clothes are different than what he has come to think of as Byleth’s mercenaries and there is a green sash that is a little too vibrant for most of them to even consider wearing. 

As Claude watches, the strange man gives her something, a small but decorated violet-covered bag that he can recognize even from this distance as a standard courting gift and his mouth goes sour. Byleth’s face goes carefully blank in that way he hasn’t seen in a long time, but she accepts the gift. He waits until the stranger departs with a small bow before sidling up to Byleth with a smile that feels too ill-fitting. 

“Hello, my friend,” he says after a moment, tone perhaps a hair too jovial. She looks at him for a moment, expression still bland enough to make his teeth itch. “Have an admirer, do you?”

“Don’t give me that smile,” she tells him finally. “You know I hate it.”

She carelessly tosses the small gift into her tent without another look and something inside of him unclenches. He didn’t think it was likely that she would be interested in marriage just yet but, he realizes, he didn’t know much about her personal life. It had never seemed relevant considering she is still a beta and his plans have not changed.

The next smile he gives her is a hair more genuine and it’s mirrored by a much smaller one of her own. “My mistake, my friend,” he says. “Just had me curious on if we should be expecting a wedding.”

She pulls a face at that, and it’s severe enough to make him laugh. “No,” she replies. “He used to travel with my father and I. Father used to say that they could give me gifts over his dead body; I guess he decided to take him up on that.” 

Something about that strikes Claude as a little off, and it isn’t the fact that his former Teach just made something approaching a joke and a morbid one at that. The other man’s scent had lingered even as Claude has taken his place, and it stunk strongly enough to make it clear he had been another alpha. Even now, the campfire scent of him is strong enough on Byleth to make Claude grind his teeth at the idea of another alpha coming close to his-

“I didn’t realize commoners were so understanding of courting betas.” 

They had been slowly making their way towards the meeting room but that makes her stop short and just stare at him for an unsettling amount of time. There’s a distinct feeling that he might have missed something, something important, and he hates that feeling. He had grown accustomed to the fact that he could never know everything that was going on inside her head, but this was new, this was different-

“I am not a beta,” she says finally before she walks ahead of him.

* * *

He doesn’t have time to think on her words until much later, as much as he wants to. He winds up late to his own meeting and their conversations are reduced strictly to tactics on how to proceed on their next mission. 

Byleth doesn’t seem bothered by the news she has unexpectedly dropped on him but he feels off-kilter, like his world has just been twisted around ninety degrees and he doesn’t know how to handle it. It is only much later that he is able to retire to his room in order to obsess over the news she has given him. All of his assumptions and plans hinged around the fact that she was, in fact, a beta. The fact that she isn’t means he may have to rework everything. 

He tries to squash down the burgeoning hope that maybe, just _maybe_ …

He still doesn’t know for sure what dynamic she is. Logically, if that mercenary was interested in courting her and he was an alpha, then that would mean she was most likely an omega. But she didn’t smell anything like one, and her scent was still undeniably that of a beta, and she didn’t act like one either. He couldn’t remember any times where she had been “indisposed” for a week or two and he didn’t recall any of the standard nesting signals that he had seen his sisters deal with. 

It was equally possible, if a lot less likely, that Teach was another alpha like himself. Claude stares up at the crack in the ceiling of his bedroom and considers it. He wasn’t overly familiar with mercenaries, other than they could be hired for assorted tasks and were useful in a fight, so perhaps mercenaries themselves did not care so much for alpha-alpha pairings. If one might die any day, it would be understandable that they would just want to care for and be cared for by someone.

Of course, she definitely did not smell like an alpha, either, and he had never felt the instinctive dislike with her that was second nature for when he was meeting with another strange alpha. He might not have trusted her right away, because he didn’t really trust anyone back then, but he’d never disliked her.

The idea that there is this new mystery about his former professor when he was just starting to figure out all of her other mysteries is maddening. 

He knows if he were to ask her, she would tell him, but that strangely feels like losing and he hates losing. 

* * *

There is an intruder in the monastery. 

No one can determine how he got in, and Claude is going to figure that out before he next sleeps, but it doesn’t change the fact they have an intruder and no one can find him. 

Byleth is missing, too, so it falls on him to split everyone into teams and have them search the monastery top to bottom. He personally takes Hilda and Lysithea with him as they go to scout out the old faculty rooms. He expects that they will run into Byleth at some point, as she is probably out doing her own rounds to look for the thief, but it leaves him feeling as though he is missing a limb without her by his side. 

The dusty rooms are almost eerily quiet as they slink down the hallway, but there’s still a heady scent to them that he doesn’t recognize. It’s faint, and smells musky almost like his favorite Almyran pine needle tea. Odd, but not terrible, and he feels comfortable sending Hilda and Lysithea down one hallway while he takes the other. 

The scent grows headier as he approaches what was once Manuela’s room and it’s almost tantalizing with the way it sits heavy on his tongue. It’s almost enough to make him a bit lightheaded. 

The heavy oak door of their former professor’s room explodes in a flurry of splinters when he’s only a few feet away and the scent becomes absolutely mouth-watering. It’s definitely the smell of his favorite tea from back home combined with a woodsier scent and horrifyingly enough, he feels himself hardening under his clothing. 

There’s a vicious snarl that makes the hair on the back of his neck raise and a split second after, the body of their supposed intruder crashes into the opposite wall and Byleth stalks out of the Manuela’s old room, looking like some bestial, beautiful thing. She’s covered in blood though none of it looks to be her own, and she looks half mad. Nothing of his stoic professor remains in the feral thing that has eyes only locked onto their intruder. 

Claude has only glanced at the body crumpled on the floor briefly, but he knows that it would be difficult for anyone to continue breathing with a missing throat. The blood smeared around Byleth’s mouth tells him enough on how it is the man died but his thoughts are syrup thick inside his skull and he can’t think of why.

“Teach,” he says and it is enough to turn her attention from the corpse to himself. Faster than he can follow, she slams him against the wall with a flash of bloodied teeth and another snarl and he thinks for one irrational moment she is about to tear out his own throat too, but she pauses and presses uncomfortably close to him. Even through clothes, she’s scorching against him. That heavy scent lingers on his tongue and in his nostrils and it is so hard to think. 

“ _Byleth,_ ” he gasps out helplessly and she croons softly from where she has tucked her head against the column of his neck. “ _Please._ ” He doesn’t know what it is he’s begging for - to drag her closer? to be released? - but she just makes the crooning again into his skin where she has nestled against him. She nibbles at the tender skin at the base of his neck and it’s almost enough to make his knees buckle. 

His hands have found their way to her hips and he clings to her for the support he doesn’t have himself. Byleth grinds against his thigh and even the gentle motion is torture against his aching groin. Claude scrabbles against her hips, her back, her shoulders, as he loses himself in the torture of her slow movements and the fog that has settled over his thoughts. Byleth is still pressed against his scent gland and gives the occasional lick to it, just enough to have him trembling against the steel of her body. 

“By-” He tries to rasp out her name and she gives a harsh bite to his clavicle, too close and not close enough to his scent gland. Arousal thrums heavy and hot in his veins and he’s so achingly close already, he just needs a little more. He tries to drag Byleth even closer with a low whine and she answers with a growl of her own and rocks harder into him and he finds himself toppling closer to the edge --

“Oh my _goddess_! Claude!”

Hilda’s shrill voice is a bucket of icy water down his spine and he abruptly realizes what exactly he’s doing: pinned against the wall by their former professor and both of them now smeared with a dead man's blood. “Um,” he says, uncomfortably aware of the way that blood is going tacky on his neck. “Hi?”

Hilda stares at him incredulously and he feels warmth crawl up into his cheeks. Lysithea is behind her with her face hidden in her hands and the embarrassment grows. “You are unbelievable. Why is the Professor pinning you to the wall? Where’s the intruder?” Byleth snarls at Hilda’s judgmental tone and he runs his hand down her side.

“He’s dead,” he offers, trying to shift just enough to show off the dead body that he was...casually getting felt up by. “She got him.” He tries to disengage from the clingy hand of Byleth, earning a sharp whine. 

Hilda approaches carefully. “Look, I’ll take care of the Professor. Can you just...go with Lysithea?” The younger girl has still not looked at them and he feels a brief stab of guilt. Byleth doesn’t attempt to lunge at Hilda, which is a huge relief, but it takes both of them to untangle her hands from his shirt and she is rigid in Hilda’s arms with her gaze locked onto him. He still feels foggy and that same scent still sits heavy in his nostrils. 

He ignores the plaintive whines from Byleth with an ugly feeling in his stomach, and steers Lysithea out of the hallway as quickly as he can manage.

He’s so hard he hurts, and he drops off Lysithea before finding the nearest hallway and comes in seconds with his nose buried in the collar of his shirt.

* * *

Two baths and a change of clothes later, Claude is back to staring up at the crack in his ceiling. 

Teach is an omega. 

Not only that but she’s a feral omega, judging by the way she had been almost completely non-verbal and only seemed to be going off instincts. And whatever those instincts were, she most definitely did not see him as an enemy. And considering the way that he’d been about ready to let her sink her teeth into his neck, they were highly compatible. 

Feral omegas were dangerous, and incredibly rare. Therefore, it makes perfect sense his professor would be one. It didn’t explain why it was that she didn’t smell like one or any of the other discrepancies about her, but it was a start. 

He knows that feral omegas are known for acting in ways otherwise unheard of for omegas: uncontrollable anger instead of uncontrollable desire, lessened or even nonexistent nesting urges, even sometimes behaving more like other dynamics. He thinks back and while she had never especially hovered over anyone, she definitely had her share of moments where she cared for everyone in their class in her own way, so that was out.

He had found the occasional note referring to that feral omegas could be tamed (he pulls a face at that word) by finding a mate they considered to be compatible, and considering the bite mark still tender on his clavicle, the idea had merit. 

He tells himself it doesn’t change anything, that instincts and hormones don’t actually mean there are legitimate feelings, but nevertheless, hope wells up in his stomach at the idea that maybe everything he’s wanted for so long could actually be possible. The same image he used to dream of back when he was just a student and Byleth was just his Teach comes to mind, vivid despite the fact he hasn’t let himself think of it in over five years.

Byleth, lying insouciantly on the blankets of his bed, courting jewelry glinting beautifully from her pale skin. Now, however, he lets himself imagine a simple silver band on her left hand, too, what any good Fodlanese citizen would expect as a symbol of marriage. Both Almyran and Fodlanese culture shown on one exquisite canvas. 

Her heat-scent is still affecting him, he tells himself as he slides a hand down beneath his smallclothes again with only the barest hint of guilt. 

* * *

They don’t have time to discuss the Hallway Incident, as they don’t have time to discuss anything other than the war anymore. He does manage to set time aside to have the faculty room reinforced and closed off to hopefully prevent any other intruders from potentially springing upon their professor when she is in heat.

Byleth slinks out of the faculty area three days later, looking faintly tired but otherwise whole. The most he is able to do is catch her eyes across the war table and she looks at him a little bit too long with her face carefully blank in the way he hates, but their conversations revolve solely on how best to take Fort Merceus. They do not have the luxury of discussing such things and over time, the fact their former professor is a feral omega is mostly forgotten.

He says he has a plan but not what it is, and Byleth merely blinks at him before nodding. Such easy acquiescence, it’s almost tantalizing.

This is perhaps the first time he’s had friends that he knows trust him implicitly, to the point that even Lorenz is willing to accept his plan without even knowing what it is. Claude knows that if he didn’t have Byleth’s trust as clearly as he did, he would have had a much harder time convincing the others to give him theirs.

He sends a letter off to Nader asking for assistance and also asks for something else to be brought. The last letters he received had let him know that he had proven himself for it and she was ready if he was. 

Nader brings her to him, a fully grown Nyesa tethered to his saddle. She’s grown significantly than when he last saw her and could hold her in his arms, but she headbutts his chest hard enough to almost make him topple over in her search to have her head scratched all the same. He can feel Byleth’s gaze on him, trying to put together the clues of him knowing an Almyran troop and their leader and having a snow-white wyvern he has never mentioned delivered. Knowing his strategist, she will probably wind up coming to the right conclusion eventually. 

“Here you go, kid,” Nader says, voice a hair too loud as he hands over Nyesa’s reins. An Almyran noble receiving their chosen wyvern is something of a big deal back home, he knows; a huge ceremony and feast ending in the pair taking off on their first solo flight. Claude used to dream of when he would receive his own and finally have the attention on him rather than his siblings.

They don’t have time for that here, and so the hand-off of the reins is as big as they will be able to go for now. He can see the regret etched in every tired line of Nader’s face, that they are in a war that is not for their own country and surrounded by people who do not understand how much the lack of the ceremony hurts, but Claude doesn’t feel any of that same regret. He has made his choice and as he turns to look at his friend, her slight smile is all he needs.

* * *

Javelins of light crash down onto Merceus and terror has a death grip on his heart because _he doesn’t know where Teach is_ \- 

Nyesa lands on the first relatively clear area they can find, his exhausted wyvern immediately slumping down, and Claude nearly falls out of the saddle in his attempts to get down. Desperation claws at his stomach, throat, heart, and he bellows, “ _Byleth_!” 

Rubble that had once been Fort Merceus is scattered around him, but most of it had been blown away by the pillars of light that had crashed down into it. Bodies lie on the ground and he steps over Bernadetta as he moves towards the center of what had once been the massive fortress. He calls out her name again and finally, after too long, a chunk of roof shifts and Byleth emerges. She holds herself in the way that tells him that she’s injured but she is whole and that blasted sword is still gripped in her hand. 

Terror still has a grip on his heart and he lunges at her to drag her into a hug. She smells overwhelmingly like sweat and dirt, completely taking over her usual beta scent, but she’s still a solid line of muscle in his arms and after a moment she unlocks enough to wrap her own arms around him. “Fucking hell, my friend,” he manages to say after several long moments of just breathing in her scent. “I was afraid you had been lost.”

Byleth nestles into his arms, her head resting against his pulse, and shakes her head slightly. “I thought I was going to be, too.” She doesn’t tremble against him, but she allows him to take on more of her weight. She is exhausted. They all are.

It is the first time they’ve touched since the Hallway Incident but it doesn’t have any of the charged atmosphere that it did; instead they are two friends comforting each other in the fact they have yet again managed to survive. The wanting that he is so used to feeling when he looks at her is quiet for once and something settles into place as they stay there.

He knows now he cannot live without her. Damn the consequences and what affect it might have on his future plans, the idea of not having Byleth by his side is unfathomable and everything within him rebels at the very idea of it. He will sport her courting jewelry and she will sport her, or he will have no one.

They stand there together for several long minutes before separating. Nyesa is displeased at the idea of having to carry two riders instead of just her customary one but after Byleth gives her a very through head scratch and murmurs a quiet compliment, Nyesa warms up to her and in fact headbutts his former professor once she dismounts and moves to stow the Sword safely.

Claude grins down at her. “She likes you, my friend,” he says, tone unbearably fond, and Byleth turns away but not before he can see the pleased smile that teases at her lips. 

* * *

He pulls Nader aside later that night before the older general is set to depart and asks him if he would at all be able to bring him something from home. 

Nader’s face cracks into a wide grin and a moment later, he brings out the maroon satchel that Claude remembers from his childhood. Inside, he realizes as he slides open the pouch, is the very barbell he had just asked for, silver and relatively simple other than the emerald that hangs from the center of it. He knows that it will look beautiful on Teach and that familiar greed of his Almyran blood likes the idea of there being something of his country pierced through her delicate cartilage to announce his claim. 

“How did you know?”

Nader snorts. “Kid, I’ve never seen you speak to anyone the way you speak to your Professor. Your letters were even worse.”

“Those letters are nothing but factual,” Claude says, only mock-offended. 

“Like shit,” Nader says. “‘ _Nader, you would like to fight Teach, I think. She’s breath-taking in battle and I think could even give you a run for your money.’_ That was basically a marriage declaration from you.” 

Nader….isn’t exactly wrong, Claude thinks wryly. Even as a child, he had never had much interest in the idea of romance, other than to know that he would one day need to marry someone for his own benefit. 

“Thank you, Nader,” he says, bowing slightly. “I’m forever in your debt. If you could, uh, keep this between ourselves…?”

The older man turns back to adjusting the saddle for his wyvern before they take off and his own mated earring glints gold in the sunlight. “Course, kid. Just make sure I’m invited to the wedding, yeah?”

* * *

They find Rhea and she tells them about those who slither in the dark. 

The name is overly pretentious and a mouthful, but he adjusts to it eventually. The archbishop - goddess? - tells them about the crest stone Teach has for a heart but has no information on why it is that she smells like a beta but is a feral omega, and one look at his friend’s face tells him she is not going to pry. 

She tells him later than she just doesn’t care to know, and the expression she wears has him assuring her he doesn’t care enough, and for once, it’s true. This is a mystery he’s content to lay to rest because he likes Byleth just the way she is and he doesn’t want that to change even if there was a way.

* * *

Claude finds her by her father’s grave. 

Uncharacteristically, she is fidgeting with something as she stares down at her father’s grave. She had been quiet most of the time, more so than usual, as if she was thinking about something that required all of her consideration and he wanted to make sure she was going to be all right. The war had been tiring on them, and no one more than her.

“My friend,” he says to announce his presence, as though she was not already aware of him skulking on the periphery. 

She turns to face him and his breath catches in his chest at the fierce expression she wore. It’s an intimidating face to be on the other end of and he instinctively takes a step back when she stalks towards him like he’s her prey. “Claude.” Her tone is matter of fact. 

“...Yes, my friend?” 

She thrusts a ring out in front of her, nearly hitting him in the face. It’s a pretty thing, almost dainty and silver with blue stones. It is also quite clearly a wedding ring. His mouth goes dry and there is an irrational moment of fear. “That’s a very pretty ring, Teach,” he starts off cautiously. “Are you planning on giving it to someone?” He doesn’t want to get his hopes up unnecessarily, and the barbell he has been carrying for weeks burns cold in his pocket. 

Byleth studies him for a moment, and he feels as though her gaze is enough to split him open and see all of his dark little secrets. “Hilda was right,” she announces like it answers anything. “You are an idiot.”

Which, ow, rude. 

Her hand slides up his chest and up into his hair and any protests he had dies on his lips. “Claude,” she murmurs, intimately enough to make his face feel hot, and her jade eyes look up at him, and her hand tightens on his hair to drag him down and down. 

Teach kisses like she fights, like he is something to be conquered. A concubine given as the spoils of war. She nips at his lower lip hard enough to sting before soothing it with her tongue and his knees go weak. The hand still in his hair tightens enough to pull on his scalp and he lets out a desperate groan that she swallows greedily. He drags her closer, or maybe she drags him closer, but it is everything Claude never knew he wanted and his greed wants more and more and more. 

She breaks off, looking kiss-swollen and flushed, and he immediately wants to drag her back. “It’s for you,” she says breathlessly. “If you want it.”

He feels foggy like he did so long ago in the goddess-forsaken hallway and he just blinks blearily. “What?”

She takes a step back which is the exact _opposite_ of what she should be doing, and fixes her clothing where his greedy hands had raked them up. “The ring,” she clarifies, then looks shy. “If you’ll have me, I mean.”

The words take a moment to sink in and sheer _elation_ rushes in. “Absolutely, yes,” he says, dragging her in for another kiss, one that he can actually savor. “ _Yes_ , my love.”

She goes an absolutely delightful shade of pink at that.

* * *

She may have beaten him to the proposal but Claude still gives her his own gift, when she looks up at him with kiss-bruised lips and is disarmed in a way he doesn’t think he has ever seen her before.

Byleth thumbs over the bar in her hands thoughtfully, lingering on the balls at either end and running a finger along the emerald charm with the Almyran family crest on it. 

“Where I’m from,” Claude explains carefully. “We don’t really use rings like here in Fodlan. We use piercings like these. Something to indicate a claim has been made. Generally for courtings or engagement, it will be something visible like ears. Nothing too racy until after people are mated and married.”

“So this,” she says, “would go on my ear?”

“If you want it to.” He shrugs casually, not letting it show how much it would mean to him. She gives him a look that makes him think she knows, anyway. “This one would go up top, like this.” He takes the piercing from her and lines it up against the curve in the cartilage in her ear, letting her feel how it would cross the shell of her ear to let the crest hang down. Even just finally seeing it pressed against her skin is enough to make his mouth go dry. 

She takes it back and goes back to staring at it. She doesn’t look repulsed at all by it, only faintly curious. “Can I give you one, too, if I want?”

The idea that he could wear something that she picked out to mark him as hers is an all too tempting idea and his stomach swoops. “Y-Yes,” he finally manages, feeling way too hot even in the mild Fodlanese sun. “Usually mates, er, wear each other’s jewelry to be marked as off limits. It doesn’t have to be this kind, too.” Her lips curl up into a small but immensely satisfied smile at that. It is, he thinks, the smile of a cat who got the canary. 

“Good,” she declares after a moment. “Then I’m going to find one to give to you and I want you to wear it.” Her tone is firm enough that he immediately knows he will have it placed as soon as she gives it to him and no arguments will be made. 

She slides the bar into her pocket and presses a biting kiss to his mouth before she leaves.

* * *

Sometimes after the final battle but before he is set to leave, Byleth tracks him down. 

“Archbishop,” he greets with a grin, but it is a dim one. She does not especially believe in the church, he knows, but she has been acting as its head for so long, and now, she is set to be a queen, too. Has confided in him that she sometimes wishes she could just run away or come with him or do anything to get out of the sight of those who flock to her. 

But there is no one else he can trust to guide Fodlan and so she will stay. For him.

Byleth pulls a face as she pulls off the heavy headdress that had once adorned Rhea’s head. “Don’t call me that,” she says. She runs her fingers through her hair and it is enough for him to see a glimpse of the silver bar that now runs across her left ear. It’s as beautiful on her as he’d always thought it would be and the satisfaction of her wearing something that is so blatantly his makes his possessive alpha purr in contentment. 

He makes a considering noise at that as she slides onto his lap, straddling his thighs. The silk of her dress catches on his calluses as he slides his hand up to cradle her hip. “No? Then what should I call you? My queen? _Rouhi_?” The term slides easily off his tongue because he wouldn’t have a chance of being able to describe to her how much she meant to him in any other way than his mother tongue, because she is indeed part of his soul by now. 

“Yes, those,” she says and then leans down to slant her lips over his.

She kisses him thoroughly into a stupor and he can only cling to her hips. “I found something for you,” she murmurs against his slack mouth and he hums. She settles back on his thighs and he chases after her lips for a moment, and she indulges him in another kiss. 

Curiosity is his worst trait so as tempting as the taste of Byleth is on his tongue, he eventually breaks the kiss off. “What did you bring me?” He asks eagerly. 

“My greedy little thing,” she says fondly, and pulls one of his hands off of her hip to drop something into it. 

He forgets to breathe at the earring that she has finally chosen. It’s gold in contrast to her silver and is a set of two piercings connected by a trio of glittering chains from which small emeralds dangle down. It’s unusual for this kind of piercing to be chosen for an initial courting gift, as it’s clearly meant to drape down along the entire shell of his ear, but it is still absolutely perfect. 

“I love it,” he says, already imagining how it will look and how much scandal it could cause back home gleefully. “I’ll go tomorrow and have it put in.”

Byleth relaxes at that, obviously insecure at her potentially having chosen the wrong thing for him as her first courting gift, and he just has to kiss her again for that. “I’m glad. You said it’s common to give multiple ones, right? I already have an idea for what I want for the next one.”

He’s delighted. “You do? What is it?”

“It’s no fun if I tell you.” She smiles and tugs at his hair just hard enough to make him shiver. “So you will just have to wait until I give it to you.”

He thinks of the one he has hidden in his clean linens and smiles. “Fair enough. I suppose I can wait.”

“You already have the next one for me, don’t you?”

“Maybe.” He doesn’t tell her he already has the next three for her.

* * *

The earring she gives him turns out to be a perfect match for the familial hoops he already wears, and even the slight weight of the chains is enough to make a thrill zip up his spine. 

Byleth’s gaze lingers on it the first time she sees him wearing it, and he’s probably the only one in the room who can see the possessive warmth growing in her eyes as she looks at him and he looks back at her. 

Her lips curl up slightly in that cat-got-the-cream smile and deep inside, his alpha preens at the idea of satisfying her so thoroughly.

* * *

It’s only much, much later, once he is a proper king and they are reunited on the battlefield, that they are properly mated and wed. 

It makes for quite a stir when the newly-crowned king of Almyra and the queen of Fodlan marry in an elaborate ceremony, to say nothing of the pair’s unusual jewelry through their skin. They both are still an absolute vision in their regalia, but the sight of a small hoop through their Queen’s lip or the stud on the side of the Almyran king’s nose is definitely an oddity that is discussed in all of the gossiping circle for some time after. 

“ _Rouhi_ ,” Claude pouts from where he lies naked against the small mountain of pillows and _is being ignored_. “We are on our honeymoon. Why are you working and ignoring your beloved husband?” 

“Because my beloved husband is being a brat,” she says dryly from where she sits at her desk to finish up some last minute statements. Byleth is close enough to her heat that her scent is starting to change to that woodsy sandalwood scent that makes his mouth water and instincts go into overdrive, but she hasn’t yet gone non-verbal like she most likely will by the morning. 

“But he’s being ignored,” he whines, because he knows it will make her smile against her will. Despite what she says, he knows she enjoys him being a brat. Byleth gets to her feet and turns to take him in and her expression is unbearably fond even as she crosses the room to join him on the bed. Her gaze lingers on all the places he carries her jewelry now and the greed inside him is satisfied at having her entire attention focused on him finally. 

He carries all of the pieces she’s chosen for him with pride, and he stretches out to his full extent to let her look her fill as her gaze lingers on the gold through his ear, nose before lingering on his most recent ones in his navel and especially the simple golden stud glinting from the head of his half-hard cock. 

Byleth leans forward and threads her fingers through his hair just to get a tug sharp enough to make him moan. “He isn’t being ignored now, is he, Khalid?” 

“His wife is too good for him for that,” he says, voice gone breathy from the pressure on his scalp and her saying his birth name like that and her eyes darken before she leans down to bite at his lower lip. 

“Yes, she is,” she purrs against his mouth and hikes up her dress to straddle him and oh she is bare underneath and he works his hand between her thighs to her damp curls with a groan -

* * *

Eventually, Claude comes to find reality is better than anything he could have imagined. 

Years ago, when he was too young to know how much better the real thing could be, he would guiltily imagine Byleth sprawled out on his bed with silver glinting with her ear, navel, lip; with kiss-bruised breasts and nipples pierced through with blue-tipped bars.

Now he is twenty five and knows that imagination could never compare to having her actually in his bed.

Her heavy heat-scent coats his tongue and he is blindingly hard against the seams of his silks but it is his turn to admire his partner, his rouhi and he enjoys it, for as long as she allows him. She croons at him sweetly from where she lays on their blankets like some wanton siren sent to tempt him to his doom and a hand disappears down under the blanket between her thighs and Claude can only groan at the temptation of it all. 

She had finally agreed to the nipple piercings after he brought them up months ago, having had some initial trepidation, but mint green gems to match her eyes tip them instead of a teal blue. A matching piece drips down from her navel and a dainty belly chain encircles the flare of her hips.

Seeing his claim marked so clearly through her skin is a sight he’s sure he would be more than happy to blaspheme to see again.

“My love,” he calls for her and she smiles as he joins her in their bed.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the spiciest thing I've ever written and also the first thing I've posted in years, so let's hope I didn't embarrass myself posting this.
> 
> It mostly stemmed from the fact there's not a ton of romance until the very least chapter of the game and that I am way too bi to handle both Claude and Byleth. And Claude just deserved a Prince Albert, I don't make the rules, okay.
> 
> This honestly barely counts as ABO fic , I'm not going to lie. I mostly wanted to write my own where people got sexy jewelry poked through their body parts and also that dynamics didn't really mean shit. I also couldn't be assed to go out of my way to make sure everything lined up perfectly for the timeline, because writing by the seat of my pants is the only kind of writing I do.
> 
> Here's all the piercings I based on for these two (all links are SFW), if anyone wants an idea, even if I couldn't find a place to mention them. We are also just going to say that magic healing takes care of the piercing right away because I know some of these can take months to heal (looking at you, my industrial) and I just wanted to write about Claude being really into Byleth's nipple rings.
> 
> Byleth:  
> [Industrial](https://www.bodycandy.com/products/14-gauge-green-gem-classic-clover-dangle-project-bar-38mm?variant=32279337992266)  
> [Navel and Nipples](https://www.bodycandy.com/products/aqua-gem-dancing-queen-chandelier-dangle-belly-ring-belly-chain?variant=13609999269962)  
> [Lip](https://www.bodycandy.com/products/22-gauge-5-16-blue-anodized-steel-seamless-nose-hoop-set-of-12?variant=32348868214858)
> 
> Claude:  
> [Cartilage](https://www.bodycandy.com/products/16-gauge-1-4-clear-gem-clear-cube-triple-dangle-cartilage-chain-earring?variant=31775041486922)  
> (but in gold)  
> [Navel](https://www.bodycandy.com/products/14k-rose-gold-plated-clear-gem-tribal-fan-drop-dangle-belly-ring?variant=29366013126)  
> [Tongue](https://www.bodycandy.com/products/rose-gold-tone-and-black-two-tone-tongue-ring?variant=12094035427402)  
> [Nose](https://www.bodycandy.com/products/solid-14kt-yellow-gold-2mm-mint-green-cubic-zirconia-nose-ring?variant=29311553542)


End file.
